Matt Conti
About the Image(s)
My goal was to make a haunted house out of the base layer which is a vertical pano of the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. I shaded the various sections to add texture, mood and shadows. I ‘lit’ the windows with a golden color fill adjustment layer.
The gravestones in front are from another cemetery in D.C. which I blended using some smoke and fog brushes.
The moon shot was from a separate night that I sized and desaturated to match the scene.
The ghosts are ‘homemade’ using the pen/shape tool, warped and blurred.
There is some royalty-free clipart additions that I wouldn’t include in a competition but for a fun pic, I added the lightning, black cat, spider and flock of birds.
This round’s discussion is now closed!
9 comments posted
I spent a lot of time shading the cathedral, first using a day-to-night lookup adjustment layer and then gradients that darkened the edges in a smooth fashion. For the darkening gradients, I selected the various sections of the cathedral, one by one, to enhance the effect. As you can see, I wanted the upper left to be darker than the bottom right. Thanks again for your comments.   Posted: 11/06/2024 11:47:42
  Posted: 11/06/2024 13:51:53
Thanks for the description of your treatment of the cathedral. I think it looks very impressive, and that shading it more on one side than the other is very interesting.
I understand why the gravestones were added in the foreground, but at first glance I thought the cathedral was standing on a platform supported by pillars. Personally, I'd consider removing them since you already have plenty going on in the image above them.
I really enjoy this image.   Posted: 11/10/2024 18:27:20
The first thing that hit me was the building uprights were quite right. I know its meant to be a bit wonky as its a creepy Cathedral, but even in images like this I feel the uprights should be right. Because of this the image lacked reality. As ts a tall bulding in theory the top should like back to give the feeling of perspective.
I have done a mock up to show you what I mean. It improves from the graveyard at the bottom right to the top of ther image, it gives a feeling of DEPTH TO THE IMAGE. Having done this it automatically improves your gravestones at the front and they look less like holding the building up. I have also darkened behind them and the hard step behind them to blend the front to the building at the back.
I liked the lights in the building, but felt they needed brightening. Adobe Raw color mixer increase the brightness of orange and yellow. Bingo the spider shows up better. etc.
I like the image very much and diffrent to the others I like lots going on in an image it adds to the enjoyment of the reader if its done well. Congrats on a fine image. Bruce   Posted: 11/11/2024 15:29:45